(no subject)
Sep. 11th, 2002 06:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiSo, Elayna is wearing red, white, and blue to school today. As is her entire class, as they were told to do so.
Yes, they want seven-year-olds to practice patriotism, without having a clue what it means.
We asked Elayna why she had to wear the colors. She had no idea. She thought it was "celebrate America" day. We told her there was already a day for that -- July 4. She said that they must have wanted a day to do it when school was in.
Fair enough.
So we asked her if she knew why they picked September 11. She had no idea. We explained that this is the anniversary of the day those planes crashed into the buildings (she still remembers when we picked her up from school early as a result). She then said that she wanted to wear the colors because she wants to honor the people who died that day.
It's still false patriotism on a lot of levels, but from a seven-year-old, I can live with that (and, from a practical point of view, I'm not going to let her get in trouble, or, worse yet, made fun of, over my own principles that she hasn't chosen to adopt yet). I just don't like the idea that, of all the kids at school, she'll be one of the few with a real idea of why they're doing this. And that the teachers and principle went for an easy, all-but-meaningless option instead of picking something meaningful, like giving them a homework assignment that actually dealt with September 11.
Yes, they want seven-year-olds to practice patriotism, without having a clue what it means.
We asked Elayna why she had to wear the colors. She had no idea. She thought it was "celebrate America" day. We told her there was already a day for that -- July 4. She said that they must have wanted a day to do it when school was in.
Fair enough.
So we asked her if she knew why they picked September 11. She had no idea. We explained that this is the anniversary of the day those planes crashed into the buildings (she still remembers when we picked her up from school early as a result). She then said that she wanted to wear the colors because she wants to honor the people who died that day.
It's still false patriotism on a lot of levels, but from a seven-year-old, I can live with that (and, from a practical point of view, I'm not going to let her get in trouble, or, worse yet, made fun of, over my own principles that she hasn't chosen to adopt yet). I just don't like the idea that, of all the kids at school, she'll be one of the few with a real idea of why they're doing this. And that the teachers and principle went for an easy, all-but-meaningless option instead of picking something meaningful, like giving them a homework assignment that actually dealt with September 11.
